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Facebook is making us envious and frustrated: report

At face value, my Facebook news feed suggests that a healthy portion of my friends have perfectly well behaved and extremely photogenic toddlers.

The rest of my friends, it would seem, travel regularly to incredible places when they’re not having an amazing time at a bar where I am not.

I would have a problem on my hands if I actually believed it.

A new study from Germany—the nation that invented Schadenfreude—reveals that if you have feelings of envy after scrolling through your news feed, you’re not alone. About one third of respondents said they felt negative feelings such as frustration or envy after looking at their friends’ social media updates.

Asked when their last feeling of envy occurred, 70 percent said it was in a real-life scenario. Meanwhile, 20 percent said the last time they felt envy was in a social media setting.

The study concludes that Facebook creates a “stressful environment, which may, in the long-run, endanger platform sustainability.”